Surprise family reunion 'a dream come true'

Tuesday

May 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 27, 2008 at 9:11 AM

In the July issue of Foundation, Richard and LaTanya Seabrook, both 31, were featured with their two daughters, Aniyah and Zion. On March 13 LaTanya received a telephone call that changed her life forever.

Charlyne Blatcher Martin

In the July issue of Foundation, Richard and LaTanya Seabrook, both 31, were featured with their two daughters, Aniyah and Zion.

Richard was adopted. LaTanya was raised by her mother. Both talked about their difficulty coping with their childhoods. However, the life that they were building together was filled with love and joy. They planned a different childhood for their children and vowed to be “positive examples in the lives of our daughters.”

On March 13 LaTanya received a telephone call that changed her life forever. The call was from a cousin who said, “You have a brother; his name is Dakari Thomas. And I have your dad’s number, too. He has been looking for you for a long time.”

LaTanya said, “The world stopped and I wrote my brother’s name and then my father’s name, Carl Wilson Sr., for the first time. I told my husband and my mother that I had a brother who knew where my father was located.”

LaTanya placed the call, which lasted three hours and introduced LaTanya to her other five brothers and sisters. She was overwhelmed that they all knew her name and that they all had joined the search to find their eldest sibling.

Dakari Thomas, 29, said, “Talking to LaTanya was a dream come true. I remember apologizing for being emotional. I knew that God had brought us together. I had never had anyone call me ‘little brother.’ I was nervous that she would not want to talk to our dad. I had just been reunited with our dad in March 2007. All of my life, I had known that she existed and I thought that she was with our dad all of this time.

“Dad came to Chicago for a funeral and he began to talk about how he had come back every year looking for LaTanya. We drove around in neighborhoods still familiar to him and he pointed out the house where he last knew LaTanya and her mother lived. I checked public records in Chicago and with the help of one of my sisters, we found one of LaTanya’s elder relatives who still owned the property. He asked me a strange question, ‘What is your father’s nationality?’ I replied, ‘Haitian.’ It was then that her relative gave me the cousin’s phone number.”

Carl Wilson Sr., 54, a retired fireman and owner of an automobile dealership in Jacksonville, Fla., said, “I was young and just out of the military in 1975 and returned to Chicago where my parents lived. I was shy until I began hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then, I fell in love … had a child and knew that I wasn’t ready to settle down.

"My dad wanted to return to a climate like Haiti … originally our home, so we moved to Jacksonville.

“I did some growing up and realized that I had two children in Chicago that I needed to find. Even after marrying and having other children, I had to find my eldest children and bring my whole family together. The last time that I had seen LaTanya, she was a 5-year-old. I found her brother in 2007, and a year to the day in 2008, after 26 years, finally I have found my eldest child. My family was complete, I had all of my seven children, but I didn’t know if LaTanya would accept me.”

LaTanya said, “When I called my father, as the phone was ringing, I tried to rehearse what I wanted to say. But, before I could get it together, I heard ‘Is this my daughter?’

And, I said, ‘Yes.’ My heart melted. Wow! I had never heard those words out of a male’s mouth. He expressed his love and apologized for his absence. He didn’t make excuses about his immature mind set at the time. I never had known of his efforts to find me. I didn’t have to ask him questions; he just opened himself up and filled in the blanks.”

Three days after the phone call, Carl sent for LaTanya, her husband and their children to fly to Jacksonville to meet the rest of her new family. which not only included six siblings, but grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

LaTanya said, “I was smiling the whole time when I first saw him and two of my sisters at the airport. We hugged and held on to each other. I could reach out and touch him, for real. Burdens that I didn’t know I had melted away. And this meeting was the first day of the rest of my life in what is a good relationship.”

And, LaTanya said, she had no problem calling him ‘Dad’ right away.

Rockford Register Star

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